


Butterflies of the Sea

by pirripipi



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Harm, Soulmate AU, nothing really intense but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirripipi/pseuds/pirripipi
Summary: Hamilton had accomplished something not many people had; not writing on his forearm to his soulmate.It hasn’t been always easy, not even close, always a stain of ink above his wrist away to reveal himself. A scratch on the wrong place.But he mannaged. Until now.





	Butterflies of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> In this soulmate au everything you write/ do on your forearm appears writen on your soulmate's 
> 
> English is not my frist languaje, but I hope it'll be enjoyable anyway.

James stands up, hands his exam, gathers his things and leaves class like an exhalation. 

 

He can’t believe it. 

 

His hands are trembling slightly, his heart’s racing. He strides fast forward to his dorm, next class be damned, throws his bag at the feet of his bed and sits very still. He starts losing touch with his surroundings. Everything is buzzing. He takes a breath, another, laces his fingers under his chin, stoops like he were in deep thought and waits. Waits for the anger to fade away. Waits for the frustration to melt.

 

Nothing happens.

 

The buzz persists, curls just at the edge of his eyes and threats to go up into his head. With a burst of energy he didn’t got last week he punches the mattress, one, two, three times. Is not proper of him to react this way. Not over something so habitual for him as being sick. He is always sick.

 

He grinds his teeth, nails his palm.

 

He just got sicker than usual this time. He tells himself. He just had the bad luck of it happening a week before the exam. He assures. An exam that was gonna be half his grade. An exam that he is not sure he’ll pass.

 

Frustration grows again, strong and suffocating, runs from his chest to his throat and tightens.

 

He goes to the bathroom. He needs to wash his face. 

 

He wishes the cold water would calm him down. Wishes for the world to be set on fire. Wishes to have something to punch. He breathes and lets himself rest against the sink. Crosses glares with his reflection, still not fully recovered from last week. He wants to spit on it.

 

There’s a razor just by the soap he uses to clean his face. He can't stop looking at it. He breaths. The world is still buzzing, frustration still tightening and internally he is surprised of how deeply this appears to be affecting him. 

It seemed a tiny bit extra on his opinion.

 

He wasn’t out of the bathroom when his mobile vibrated with a text form Thomas. He asked him how the exam went. He can’t answer now.

 

He looks at himself in the mirror again, looks at the razor. Frustration tightens and tightens and he thinks he is gonna choke. 

 

He picks up the razor, puts it in his jacket pocket and leaves his dorm again, this time without a proper destination in mind.

 

He ends up as far away from campus as he can get on the subway, marchs down the less and less transited streets like a man on a mission, fast as if there were flames at his heels.

Is already past lunchtime when he reaches an empty street, sitting on the stairs of some old doorway. It feels more private than his shared dorm. 

 

He tries to breath again, a last chance for the frustration to go away, just a bit, just enough. It doesn’t work.

The upcoming spring sun is not warm enough.

 

Without missing a beat he picks up one of the razor’s blades.

 

&&

 

Hamilton had accomplished something not many people had; not writing on his arm to his soulmate, not even as a child, hoping that they’d believe he is dead and just move on.

It hasn’t been always easy, not even close, always a stain of ink above his wrist away to reveal himself. A scratch on the wrong place.

He has been told that is inevitable, impossible to hide for so long. And he has proven them wrong. Thankfully, he doesn’t do that soulmate bullshit. Can’t believe on it anymore.

 

Truth be told, it was his mother at first the one that didn’t let him write, never actually explaining why.

When his father left them he understood. They were soulmates.

 

So he didn’t write, pretending to be dead; and he intended to keep doing that. It was the less cruel solution. He doesn’t do relationships anyway, and if his soulmate thinks he is dead since the beginning there is no pain to overcome and just moving on. He still hopes the best for them.

 

That, until he finds the first knife mark on his arm. 

Is not terrible deep, not in the right direction to make deathly harm; still his chest constricts and his breathing fails. He wants to think is an accident, so he waits. Holds his breath and release the death grip he is been having his pen in and breaths again. He is alone on his dorm and he couldn’t be more grateful for that. Then the next mark appears, a little bit up, a little more deep, and a next one, and another and he thinks that whatever pain release his soulmate must been seeking of they have found it, because they don’t stop. He freaks out. At the ninth mark he grabs his pen again. At the tenth he writes.

 

“Stop.” 

 

There is a terrifying moment when he waits for an answer, more marks, something or nothing. A second when he becomes painfully aware that all these years of meticulous hiding are over. Another cut appears, crossing over his words, and he interprets it for the  _ ‘fuck you’ _ it is.

 

“Please, please stop” He writes again because he is freaking even more out, because he has already discovered himself and because he never wished his soulmate harm, quite the opposite.

 

Nothing. No marks no answer for two agonizing minutes. He breathes.

 

“Where are you?” He writes and hopes for whoever that his soulmate is to have a pen at hand. He did. He was in New York. He couldn’t believe it. One hundred and ninety four countries in the world. Thousand of possibilities. And his soulmate was in New York, just a subway drive away. 

 

His soulmate had only written to him eight times before. Five of them little doodles and a couple of  _ hi’s _ when he was barely five and to which he wanted desperately to answer. Other two during his teen years, cold and straight to the point. He liked them. The last one was before he started college, bidding his farewell. 

 

“Hold on. I’ll be there in an hour, please don’t leave.”

 

&&

 

Of course James is not a idiot and doesn’t wait for a unknown person that thought dead just minutes ago on that alley. He, instead, gave him the direction of a more crowded street and waited for him on a bench. He was tired and cold even if it was the beginning of spring.

 

Hamilton picked up everything he thought he may need, a couple more of things that would probably never come to use and another couple that were going to be very much definitely useless and put it all in a backpack. He left.

 

“I’m here, where are you?” There was a minute of silence, then another. “I’m the guy with the ugly backpack.” More silence.

 

He stood there without really knowing what to do. Relieved for not meeting his soulmate, worried that he may have done something worst than what he was doing early, and in general just paralyzed. Then there was an answer.

 

“I see you.” They wrote. “Third bank, just by the coffee shop.” 

 

James didn’t recognized Hamilton at first, he only saw the backpack. When he came close he could feel his blood freeze. Hamilton saw him too. 

 

For a second he watched Hamilton checking again his arm, looking around, doubting. He was doubting himself too. James must be looking quite worst that he thought he was because after his second recheck on the coffee shop, Hamilton went straight to him and sat by his side.

 

“Hey” he said.

 

“Hey” James answered.

 

Hamilton looked around for a moment, checking for something, though James couldn’t tell what.

 

“So…” He began.

 

“Please, don’t say anything.” James interrupted.

 

“Oh, uhm, ok.” He fidgets anxiously, feeling as uncomfortable as James is, and immediately opens his backpack and tosses him a hoodie, big and thick and with that sheep cover on the inside that made everything ten times fluffier. He suspected it was Hamilton’s favourite one if the amount of times he wore it were something to go by. He gestures him to put it on and he does, he is too tired to refuse. 

Hamilton keeps searching through his bag, brings out a water bottle, two apples, some granola bars, chocolate, and he must have noticed the look that James was giving him because he has the decency of looking uncomfortable while saying:

 

“I wasn’t really sure what would you need, or if you’d have any allergies or something so… I may have gone a little, errrr, overboard.” But he stops pulling things out. James picks up the water bottle and the granola bar and starts eating.

 

“That’s very thoughtful” He says because it actually was, unexpected too. One more thing to add at the amount of things that unsettled him today. Hamilton lets him eat at peace, deathly silent and quite uneasy. He looked around again, still searching for whatever thing he was searching. On another day he’d may have cared, right now he was just happy with eating mechanically.

 

He finished the bar and went for the apple, dried out the bottle and before he could ever ask he got another one.

 

“I have orange juice too.” Hamilton said, and it shouldn’t have sound as endearingly ridiculous as it sounded. He just hummed and took a ship of the new bottle.

 

There was tension on the air, thick and dangerous and persistent, it hung in the air and grew with every given moment. He finished eating. 

They waited.

 

Then Hamilton started searching through his bag again and with a cautious voice he said:

 

“I brought our first aid kit.” James has been dreading this moment since he knew that someone was coming for him. That someone being Hamilton only made things worst. “We can go to that coffee bathroom to, errr, fix you up. Or you can go by yourself. Or we can go to another place. I mean, whatever makes you less uncomfortable, but those cuts can't be left unattended.”

 

James is not sure if Hamilton is trying to take control because he is Hamilton or because he actually knows anything about how to act on a situation like this. It doesn’t matter right now really, since James knows he is right as much as he knows that the handkerchief he covered them with is not doing so much against infection.

James nods and together they go into the cafe. He refuses to let Hamilton in the bathroom with him tho, and he can see that he is as much relieved as he is concerned. He takes his time with his cuts.

 

He considers giving Hamilton his bag back and leave. No eye contact, not a word. But he decides against it. He joins him in the table.

 

“I didn’t knew what you liked, or if you wanted something at all.” Hamilton apologizes. “A hot drink would do good to you, tho.” He adds. James just hums again, but refuses to order anything. This is getting too much for him very quickly.

 

They keep awkwardly in silence.

 

“Do you wanna talk-?” Hamilton begins.

 

“No”

 

He nods and stays quite. They remain that way until Hamilton ends his drinks and escorts him to the subway that will bring them back to campus. Neither of them know where they stand anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't take this fic as a reliable example of how in real life self harm works.


End file.
